At any time of year almost, the time of day commands these deeds, unless
the weather is outrageous; but never more undeniably than in the month
of April. The growth of the year is well established, and its manner
beginning to be schooled by then; childish petulance may still survive,
and the tears of penitence be frequent; yet upon the whole there is--or
used to be--a sense of responsibility forming, and an elemental inkling
of true duty towards the earth. Even man (the least observant of the
powers that walk the ground, going for the signs of weather to the cows,
or crows, or pigs, swallows, spiders, gnats, and leeches, or the final
assertion of his own corns) sometimes is moved a little, and enlarged
by influence of life beyond his own, and tickled by a pen above his
thoughts, and touched for one second by the hand that made him. Then he
sees a brother man who owes him a shilling, and his soul is swallowed up
in the resolve to get it.
But well in the sky-like period of youth, when the wind sits lightly,
and the clouds go by in puffs, these little jumps of inspiration take
the most respectable young man sometimes off his legs, and the young
maid likewise--if she continues in these fine days to possess such
continuation. Blyth Scudamore had been appointed now, partly through
his own good deserts, and wholly through good influence--for Lord St.
Vincent was an ancient friend of the excellent Admiral Darling--to the
command of the Blonde, refitted, thoroughly overhauled at Portsmouth,
and pronounced by the dock-yard people to be the fastest and soundest
corvette afloat, and in every way a credit to the British navy.
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